Miles Davis Playing His Trumpet Long Sleeve Shirt

A man and a trumpet, which between them account for a startling proportion of what happened to music in the twentieth century.

He changed direction roughly every five years and took the entire form with him each time — the cool sound of the late forties, the modal records, then Kind of Blue in 1959, which remains the best-selling jazz album ever made, and then, when everybody had caught up, he plugged in and alienated half his audience on purpose. His most quoted piece of advice was about not playing: that the notes you leave out are the ones that make the others mean anything.

Daddy plays Kind of Blue when people come over and Bitches Brew when they have gone. He wears this either way.

The shirt itself is the good kind of basic: combed ring-spun cotton, preshrunk, side-seamed so it hangs straight, taped shoulders so the collar doesn’t twist after the fortieth wash. It fits like the tee you’ve had for ten years, on day one.

How to wear it

Long sleeve on its own with dark trousers, sleeves pushed up. Black, charcoal or navy; nothing bright.